About Me

Writer/Curator/Founder of The Autism Acceptance Project. Contributing Author to Between Interruptions: Thirty Women Tell the Truth About Motherhood, and Concepts of Normality by Wendy Lawson, and soon to be published Gravity Pulls You In. Writing my own book. Lecturer on autism and the media and parenting. Current graduate student Critical Disability Studies and most importantly,
mother of Adam -- a new and emerging writer.

“There is no hope unmingled with fear, and no fear unmingled with hope.”
-- Baruch Spinoza

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

My Avenger

Tonight is Halloween. When Adam was two, his grandmother made him a little bunny costume and we went out trick-o-treating. Those were the days when Adam was learning “open door,” and during the crisp Halloween eve, he thought that every door that opened obliged him to walk through.

“No, Adam, you take the candy, see?”

He would reply with a whine. He just didn’t understand why he couldn’t visit every house that opened their doors to him. Candy was also something he hadn’t yet discovered.

The second year, I decided not to make a big deal out of Halloween. He would wear the bottom part of his bunny suit from the previous year, and answer the door to hand out candy. This was a hit. Adam was beginning to learn how to give and take, and he took delight in the children coming to our door in their costumes, and placing his tiny hands full of candy into their pillow cases. Later, it was a pleasant enough evening to walk over to our friends place to experience the “receiving” of candy, but at age three, he still wasn’t that keen.

This year, at age four, I am building on what I’ve learned. Adam is not yet that excited about Halloween. Instead of making him Spider Man or some character we both don’t really know, I sat down yesterday and stitched letters and numbers to old clothes. He will be ALPHABET BOY. My hyperlexic little guy was delighted. He watched me stitch the letters to his clothes with great focus.

“This is the needle and this is the thread.”

“Thread,” he’d repeat, watching me holding it tautly in the air.

“This is your costume.”

“Costume.”

“You wear a costume on Halloween.”

“Halloween.”

“You get candy on Halloween.”

“Candy,” he perked. Since last year, he has learned all to well the pleasures of candy.

I bought some pumpkins and we drew faces on them. We wrote a little story of how he will get into his alphabet costume and give out candy to the children at our door.

It was really nice to do this for Adam. It was wonderful for me to see him watching me sew the letters on his clothes and be a little interested in Halloween – or at least his mother’s sewing.

As I sit in the rocking chair I once nursed him in, stitching letters and numbers, feeling matronly once again, I consider with a great warmth inside that this is as good as it gets. -- this bond, this love, this peace. Adam may not be the man who leaps tall buildings, but he is my super hero, my avenger, my…Alphabet Boy.